That's a good point, but I think it actually services to show just how bad this situation was. It's not a stretch to say that faithless electors are a "feature"

That's a good point, but I think it actually services to show just how bad this situation was. It's not a stretch to say that faithless electors are a "feature" of the electoral college. One of the stated reasons behind choosing electors rather than voting directly is that the electors could exercise their own discretion in the choice. I agree that it's unscrupulous to attempt to coax electors like that, but it's at least within the bounds of the framework of presidential elections. This was a crowd of thousands of people, many armed, attempting to interfere with the actual process of counting the votes of those electors. More than a couple members of the crowd had zip ties, which can only be reasonably explained as hostage taking paraphernalia. A literal gallows was erected, and members of the crowd were chanting for violence against Pence and Pelosi (the next two after Trump in the order of succession). A couple IEDs were found on the premise. A police officer was beaten to death. If security hadn't managed to evacuate congress and the VP before the crowd got to them, it seems likely that there would have been deaths among them. Treating those two things as equivalent is absurd.